Answers to questions submitted regarding RFQQ F-1935 December 13, 2017 Special Education Technology Center Website and Database Redesign

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Logan Wilkins
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1 Answers to questions submitted regarding RFQQ F-1935 December 13, 2017 Special Education Technology Center Website and Database Redesign Q. Whether companies from Outside USA can apply for this? (like,from India or Canada) A. Vendors located outside of the US are welcome to participate in this RFQQ. Please see page 5 (section titled Proposal Guidelines ) of the RFQQ for more information. Q. Can we perform the tasks (related to RFP) outside USA? (like, from India or Canada) A. Yes Q. Whether we need to come over there for meetings? A. Demonstrations can be done remotely if they are selected for further inquiry as part of this process. Q. Can we submit the proposals via ? A. Yes. Q. Could you confirm that the maximum budget for the project is $15,000, as listed in 2.3 Terms of Contract? A. Yes, the maximum budget for the project is $15,000 as listed in section 2.3, Term of Contract. Q. Will a RFP be issued following this RFQQ or will a vendor be awarded a contract from this RFQQ? A. A contract may be awarded pursuant to this RFQQ. An RFP is not planned at this time.

2 Q. Section 4.5 Cost: Should each item be priced as a NRC and MRC, or should we simple identify if the cost is either NRC and MRC and provide the value? A. Costs should be stated as non-recurring costs (NRC) or monthly recurring costs (MRC) and provide the value. Q. Can you send document or link to this that have the aggregated answers from vendor questions? A. Yes, we will and post answers to vendor questions on Wednesday, December 13 th at 3 PM. An amendment to RFQQ has been posted to WEBS to include a deadline date for questions and answers. Q. Is there a local preference policy? A. There is no local preference policy. We have access to student tech employees who will be doing some of the migration. A local vendor may have more availability to coordinate with our student employees. On the other hand, much of this project can be done remotely. Q. Will your staff be responsible for content and data migration to new site (so much is manual effort but we have some internal tools to automate as much as we can)? A. Yes, staff will be responsible for all of the content for the website. Migration Yes, we have senior level student employees who will be able to perform data migration with some instruction.

3 Q. Any integration needs beyond what s on the RFP (e.g. 3rd party software) that needs to be integrated to the site? A. Currently, we use Lime Survey for our surveys, in addition to our website and database. If survey s can be integrated into the new database, then there would be no need for this 3 rd party software. Potential to link to CWU s future online payment system. Q. What are the new website's goals? A. To provide information and access to SETC services to educators in Washington state. Goals are ease of use, accessibility, integration of database with website (shopping cart for lending library and training registration), security of client information, eventual linking to CWU s payment, efficiency in registrations, orders, and payments. Q. What technology are you currently using for your client profile database? Would you like to continue using this technology for your new website? A. Website: Joomula. The database was self-build. The following program languages have been used HTML, PHP, SQL, JavaScript (basic Java) An individual built the database and it has functioned fairly successfully for the 10 years in use. We are needing to update because we have tripled our user-base. We also cannot add accessibility features to our current website and database.

4 Q. What technology are you using for your lending library? Would you like to continue using this technology for your new website? A. The content of our lending library will remain the same, but the SETC staff will work on updating content for the new database. Our database technology has functioned well for the 10 years in use, but is becoming harder to repair and difficulty to add greater functionality. Q. In regard to special functionality/third-party app integrations, it sounds like you have six: a client database CRM, a lending library, event registration, keyword search, ecommerce (payment portal) and online forms. Are there any other apps/integrations that will need to be added to the new site? If so, what are they? A. Survey function- currently using Lime Survey One of our online forms requires the ability for users to upload documents and short video clips. Q. What's the approximate budget? A. 15,000 is our initial budget for this bid. Our grant is funded annually and has been for 25 years. This budget for this project is for this grant year which ends August 31 st. Q. How many pages are on the current site? A. Current website: The main tabs that people go to are Services, Consultations and My Account. The old website is far larger than we anticipate.

5 Website we started to build in preparation for this projects. This website reflects the direction we would like to go. We would like to keep the website clean and current: Q. Who will be in charge of content migration? A. We plan for two student employees to be doing content migration. We plan for SETC employees to update and build new content. Q. Is there an incumbent vendor (i.e. an agency you're already working with)? If so, who is it, and will that company be submitting a proposal? A. No we do not have a current vendor. We have been utilizing CWU tech students to maintain and repair our current website and database that was built 10 years ago. We would like to continue with this model, with the understanding that we have a need for some ongoing consultation on website and database maintenance. Q. Will you accept proposals that only bid on the website portion of this project? Or do all proposals need to cover both the database and the website? A. Yes, we welcome all bids, even if it is only on a portion of the project. This project will span over two grant years. So there is the possibility of starting a portion of the project and then expanding to a second phase in September of Please specify what would be possible with the 15, 000 budget and projected cost of a possible second phase that would not be included in this budget.

6 Q. There s a clause mentioned in the RFP that cost for 1 year work on this RFP cannot exceed USD 15,000. Is it a hard cap on the budget set aside for the project? If not, what s the fund set aside for the project? A. Our grant can only budget for the current grant year. While the grant has been awarded for over 25 years, we are not able to allocate funds beyond the current grant year. We anticipate that this project would have a phase two which would allow us to allot funds once the new grant year begins in September Q. What s the approximate effort (person hours) spend today to manage the existing website? A. We have one to two senior-level students at hours per week whose time can be dedicated to the website. Currently, their effort on the website and database are driven by need and fixing things that break. We are hoping to guide out students in being more deliberate in management and development of both the website and database. Two staff members manage content, and would be freed up to do more content development, updating, and inputting for this project. Q. The custom database functionality can be done either (i) using Wordpress plugin or (ii) redirecting users to a different web application running under the CWU SETC domain. What is the Special Education Technology Center's (SETC) preference? A. We are fine with either option as long as the website and database communicate well with each other. Our priority is ease of use and maintenance. Q. Is the University/SETC able to assist in identifying and coordinating meetings with stakeholders and typical end users for user research? A. Yes, we have a very responsive user group that is willing to provide feedback on end use.

7 Q. Seems like the SETC has made some progress on the test site ( - and evidently capable of building a website, what are some things / values that they are looking out for in a vendor (why is there a need to contract this project and rely on a vendor rather than building it internally)? Is there a vision for the final website? A. Our main need in contracting with a vendor is for the building of the database so that there is smooth communication between our new website and the new database. While we are capable of building a website, we did not want to get too far with website development without considering what platform would be used for the new database. We felt that is important to be building these two tools simultaneously. We do not have the skill set to build a new database, but we do have the basic skills to develop a website. We are able to take on more of the website development and rely more on the vendor for the database. We may have questions for a vendor on functionality and advanced features in relation to our website. Q There is a $15k project budget, does the budget include the costs of web hosting, domain registrations and maintenance/support after the go-live? A We already have a web host and domain registration. We are hoping that our senior students can maintain the website with support from a contractor and are aware that there may be a yearly fee. We would like to know upfront what that fee would be. Bluehost is the host of our new test site and the test website is being created in Wordpress. We currently have purchased 3 domain names.

City of Morrow Request for Proposals. Pre-Proposal Conference June 14, 2018 at 10am. Proposal Deadline July 6, 2018 at 2:30

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